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Ning
Ning, Portrait # 1
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I was walking with my wife, Lee, when we first
met Ning Ning in a park near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Ning Ning
and her keeper were walking hand in hand down a path with Ning Ning
being restrained only by the keeper's hold on her hand. When we
stopped to talk to the keeper, the small three-year-old
orangutan took Lee’s hand and pulled herself up, wanting to be
held. Lee obliged, cradling Ning Ning in her arms while the
small orangutan played with her necklace. I was struck by the
gentleness of this infant being, and her need for nurturing.
The next time we saw Ning Ning she was surrounded by a busload of tourists, and had become
very agitated.
The images here were made afterward, as we tried to help calm
the baby orangutan. |
Ning
Ning's story, like that of all orangutans taken from the wild,
is tragic. Baby orangutans are in demand as pets, and the young
can be separated from their fiercely defensive mothers only by killing the mother.
The babies are then taken and sold for
extremely high prices. They often refuse to eat and are
transported under terrible conditions. Between six and eight
of them die for each one that survives. Orangutans live up to 60
years in captivity, but once grown they have many times the
strength of a human and cease being good pets.
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This
cruelty, apart from the toll it takes on individual orangutans,
is a death sentence for the entire specie. Female orangutans
usually have only three or four offspring during their lifetime.
With such a low
reproduction rate and so few orangutans remaining, every
individual counts. Additionally, the only habitats that support
wild orangutans are vanishing at an astonishing rate. |
Ning
Ning, Portrait # 2
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Ning
Ning, Portrait # 3 |
Ning
Ning has undoubtedly experienced unimaginable trauma in the time since her birth in the rainforest. In spite of this
she remains a gentle being. Her life is no longer traumatic, but
it will be spent captive among humans, in a world where
she does not belong. |
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